Section: US & Canada

Pence says at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that with regard to Ukraine, the international community must hold Russia accountable and demand that it honor a 2015 peace agreement aimed at ending the fighting in eastern Ukraine between government forces and Russia-backed separatists. Pence’s speech comes amid concerns in Europe...

“The vice president has sent reassuring messages through his own engagement but that hasn’t been enough to dispel the concerns that you see in many parts of Europe,” says Jeff Rathke, a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In Munich, the American allies will be seeking clues from Pence as to how...

The Moody’s ratings agency has raised the outlook on Russian government debt, citing improved fiscal management that it says will reduce the government’s dependence on oil and gas revenues. …read more Source: Radio Free Europe / Radio...

Emails accusing German soldiers stationed in Lithuania of rape were sent this week to local news outlets, the latest incident in what NATO officials say is a Russian “fake news” campaign aimed at eroding public support for the military alliance. The emails, which were sent to several Lithuanian media outlets on February 14, claimed...

FILE – In this July 3, 2008, file photo, New Mexico Tech professor Penny Boston crawls through the Mud Turtle Passage on the way to the Snowy River formation during an expedition in Fort Stanton Cave, N.M. Boston, who discovered extreme life in New Mexico caves in 2008, presented new findings on Friday, Feb. 17, 2017 of microbes trapped in...

What We’re FollowingThe Fourth Estate: One of today’s biggest stories was the AP report—based on a leaked draft memo—that the Trump administration was considering deploying the National Guard to round up unauthorized immigrants.The memo was real, but the White House denied it, and the saga that unfolded illustrated how the...

By SETH BORENSTEIN BOSTON (AP) — In a Mexican cave system so beautiful and hot that it is called both Fairyland and hell, scientists have discovered life trapped in crystals that could be 50,000 years old. The bizarre and ancient microbes were found dormant in caves in Naica, Mexico, and were able to exist by living on minerals such as iron and...

KYIV, Ukraine—The Kremlin’s strategy of military aggression in Ukraine and Eastern Europe has backfired, spurring former Soviet and Warsaw Pact countries to become a de facto anti-Moscow military bloc, while NATO rearms and reinforces its eastern flank. Altogether, Eastern Europe has become the most rapidly militarizing region on earth,...

After Brexit and the victory of U.S. President Donald Trump, the widespread expectation is that continental Europe will follow suit and bring populists into power in upcoming elections there this year.Yet one repercussion of the early days of the Trump presidency is that Europeans can now see clearly the kind of ugly incivility, volatility and...